Unlike the question of how many people fit on the National Mall, there's no discrepancy over Sean Spicer's latest offering. The Briefing, Spicer's memoir of his seven months as White House press secretary, has been deemed universally bad.
NPR's Annalisa Quinn points out how Spicer's book "doubles down on some of the lies he became famous for as press secretary," like his defense of President Trump's inauguration crowd size. The Telegraph's Harriet Alexander calls it "a memoir that reeks of desperation." And ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl's damning review in The Wall Street Journal can be summed up in this concise line.
As Karl highlights, Spicer's pandering to the president he calls "a unicorn riding a unicorn over a rainbow" is a universal criticism of The Briefing. But Spicer doesn't love Trump's governing as much as his decorating prowess, like "the famous Trump name in strong letters and imperial gold paint shining in the sun" on the president's private plane, Quinn quotes from the book. NPR is kind enough to assume there's no way a ghostwriter composed this masterpiece.
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Spicer probably didn't use a fact checker either, Karl's Journal review suggests.
Spicer's editing budget may have been spent renting the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for the The Briefing's launch party, where he got the ex-employee rate of $10,000 for the night.
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